"All right," Dawn said out loud. "This is going to be odd."

"I'm inclined to agree," Princess Salvia noted. "I wonder which of us will find it easier to deal with."

"That's a good question," Dawn mused. "I mean, I've had some experience with doing your job, but according to Togekiss you did pretty well last time around."

"That's… comforting, I think," Salvia said a little dubiously. "It still sounds very strange to hear about doing things I didn't actually do."

"You did do them," Dawn countered. "Just… not this you? Hold on, that doesn't make sense."

She shrugged it off, and turned to her Pokémon. "You'll all take good care of Salvia, right?"

Buneary sketched a bow, and Pachirisu nodded eagerly next to her. Behind them both, Quilava reared up to lean against Mamoswine's leg and wave his paw. "Quil!"

"That's a yes from both of them, I think," Dawn supplied.

Togekiss gave both her trainers a quick nuzzle, which drew a smile from Salvia, and then Ambipom shook the Princess' hand with one of her tails.

"Piplup?" Dawn asked.

Piplup turned his beak up, crossing his flippers.

"Is he all right?" Salvia asked.

"I think he's just upset that I didn't go to him first," Dawn said. "Come on, Piplup..."

"Piiii-ip!" Piplup insisted, turning away. Unfortunately, the ground was a little muddy, and he did a complete spin before falling onto his front.

Quickly getting back to his feet, he washed himself off before trying to look like nothing had happened.

"Don't worry about it," Dawn advised. "Have you decided who you're going to use, yet?"

"Well, I was thinking about it," Salvia admitted. "I think I'd rather use Togekiss, but I'm not sure if this is a doubles contest."

"It is, yes," Dawn confirmed. "It's one of the ones where you can use different Pokémon in the contest and battle section."

"I think I'll have enough trouble getting up to speed properly with two Pokémon, so I'll decline to exercise that option," Salvia determined. "I thought it would be good to have Piplup work with Togekiss."

"Piip," Piplup said, flippers going to his side and shooting a glance at Togekiss – who nodded back.

"All right," Dawn smiled, then turned to her Pokémon. "And remember, you should behave better for Salvia than you do for me!"

"Ea-ry-bun?" Buneary commented.

"Because I know how you behave for me sometimes," Dawn reminded them.

Salvia's assistant coughed, and Dawn winced. "Sorry, I'd better get going."


"Piplup," Salvia began. "So… the list Dawn sent me says you know Whirlpool. Can you show me how that looks?"

Piplup did a twirl, his flippers producing a stream of water, and within a moment he was almost hidden inside the vortex of his Whirlpool as he spun it up to full speed.

The Water-type sustained it for several seconds, then dropped out of the eye of the vortex. Still keeping his whirlpool going, he aimed for a moment before throwing it at a nearby tree and producing an explosion of water.

"Buun-ry," Buneary commented from the sideline, and Piplup stuck his tongue out at her.

"All right," the princess said, giving him a nod. "That's good – can you mix other things into it?"

Piplup waved his flipper dismissively – of course he could.

"Well, I was thinking of having you fly up with Togekiss," Salvia explained. "Then you'd use Whirlpool and she'd use Fairy Wind, and together you could create a nice glitter effect – especially if you can make the water fall apart into droplets which each have a little bit of fairy energy in them."

She glanced to her side. "Does that sound like it'll work?"

Buneary nodded.

"Kii-iii," Togekiss added, voicing her willingness to give it a go.

As Salvia was about to send them off, however, she spotted a Pokémon coming up behind Buneary.

"Is that one of Sir Slate's Pokémon?" she asked Buneary, eyeing the Tyrunt walking towards her.

Buneary turned to see who she was referring to, and shook her head – then pointed at the smaller Mawile who was walking alongside Tyrunt, and shook her head again.

"Oh," Salvia said, a little nonplussed. "But you know them, correct?"

A nod.

While she was thinking about that, the Tyrunt reached a point a few feet away from her and stopped. He sniffed, then sniffed more deeply, and asked a question to the Steel-type next to him. "Ruuuu?"

Mawile looked Salvia up and down, then replied with a shrug. "Maaa-wile."

Then they walked off.

"...I'm not sure how to take that," Salvia admitted.

Buneary flipped her ears, then nodded towards Piplup and Togekiss.

"Good advice," Salvia praised. "Very well, let's see how this works."


"I thought you said princesses had really impressive dresses?" Tyrunt asked.

"I thought they did!" Mawile replied. "All the books say they do, and the real live princess I've met had some really good ones too."

She thought about it, then realized something. "Oh! Of course, she's in disguise because she's pretending to be Dawn! So she can't wear a princess dress, but maybe she will at the Contest!"

Tyrunt took that in, amazed at how good Mawile was at working things out.

They both stopped and looked up at a flash of sparkling light overhead, and Tyrunt's jaw dropped slightly as he saw a spiral-shaped sparkle of Fairy Wind infused water drift across the sky.

"Wow..." he said softly.


"The Princess' schedule is relatively clear for today," Freesia said, referring briefly to her notes. "The main events of note are a short levee in the afternoon and a charity ball in the evening."

"A levee..." Dawn repeated, carefully putting one of the earrings into her ears. "That's when people can come and request for things to be paid attention to, right?"

"Correct," Freesia nodded. "Well done. And the ball in the evening will require your presence for the opening and the first hour, but after that it would not be impossible for you to depart early."

"I think I'll do my best to stay for the whole thing," Dawn replied, putting the other earring into her left ear. "It seems only polite."

She checked a mirror. "How does this look?"

"It's a little odd, actually," Freesia smiled. "I have to keep reminding myself you're not my employer, you two do really look extremely similar."

Her hand touched Dawn's. "I thought I should give you some advice for the day, however, in case you've not heard it before."

Dawn turned to look at Freesia. "What's that?"

"If in doubt, say you will take it under due consideration," Freesia told her. "It sounds very impressive, but it's actually completely noncommittal."

The faux-princess parsed the sentence, lips moving slightly as she repeated it to herself, then grinned. "You're right."

Picking up the tiara, she was about to put it on when the bag she'd brought twitched.

Then Brock's Zorua poked her head out of the bag.

"Zorua?" Dawn demanded, remembering to keep her voice down. "What are you doing here?"

Zorua yipped, then frowned. "Sleep-ing, or I wahs," she said slowly. "Waht hap-pened?"

Freesia made a note. "The good news is, that's at least less trouble than if most of your other Pokémon had come along."

"She's Brock's, not mine," Dawn corrected. "Why not?"

"She, at least, is easy to conceal," Freesia explained. "Either by transforming into something small, or in extremis by having her pretend to be a Furfrou."


"Let's see if we can make that work as a curtain," Salvia suggested. "So – this time, Piplup, aim for your whirlpool to unravel such that it makes a wall of water once Togekiss has infused it. Togekiss, try to put more energy into the water."

She gestured, trying to get across her idea. "If the two opposing Pokémon are separate and you manage this, then it'll mean you can team up against just one of them without the other coming to help."

Togekiss looked over at Piplup to see if he thought he could do it, and Piplup gave a confident nod.

"Okay, let's give that a go," Salvia invited.

She stepped back, and Togekiss let Piplup get on her back before the two went soaring into the air.

As they reached their planned battle height, Piplup spun up his Whirlpool. He twirled it once, giving him time to give it more size and strength, then held it down low enough for Togekiss to reach.

The Fairy-type fired off her prepared Fairy Wind, infusing the Whirlpool with energy, and banked around so Piplup would have a good shot at putting it between the two rocks they were using as targets.

Piplup ran along Togekiss' wing to reach the best possible angle, posed, and whipped his Whirlpool around so it formed a long line across the battlefield.

Then he remembered that Togekiss now had wet wings, largely because he slipped off.

The force of the whirlpool worked against him, sending him flying out of range from where Togekiss could rescue him, and he landed squarely on top of Quilava.

Startled awake, Quilava coughed out a plume of smoke before rounding on Piplup. "Qui-il?"

"Lup!" Piplup replied angrily, not appreciating the blame for the accident. "Piii-iip!"

The Fire-type countered with a point of his own, and Piplup put his flippers on his hips and really started to wade in.

Buneary sighed, one ear going down. "Eeear-y..."

"How often do they do this?" Salvia asked, watching the argument continue to a backdrop of glittering pink-and-blue rain.

Ambipom shrugged, counting on her fingers, then gave up when she ran out of hands. "Pom."

Togekiss came down to land, ready to adjudicate a solution to the quarrel, and gave her original trainer a slightly harried – but pleasant – smile. "Toge..."

"I get the feeling she's used to that," Salvia said, sitting down on a convenient log. "I'm glad someone is."


"Good work, Delta!" Max called, as his Water-type flapped his fins and banked around – not far from the edge of the arena, a Water one this time. "Make sure he can't hit you!"

Delta's opponent – a Remoraid – popped up from the water, fins beating to keep him in place, and fired a Charge Beam up at the flying Mantine.

It went just a little wide as Delta accelerated, summoning a Tailwind to give him a boost, and crashed into the barrier protecting the crowd. Remoraid turned, trying to sweep the attack across and clip Delta, but he failed as Max's Mantine dropped just out of the sightline.

His attack over, Remoraid dropped back into the pool – just as Delta swept up to counterattack, meaning the first few of Delta's Bullet Seeds splashed into the water without having any effect. Delta ended the attack rather than continue wasting it, but circled overhead to watch for a vulnerability.

"Keep up that Tailwind!" Max called out. "And – dive!"

Delta turned over, rolling onto his back before yawing slightly so he was ready to pull out again. His tailwind coiled after him, picking up speed, and Max waited until Delta was about to hit the water.

"Stop!" he shouted suddenly, and Delta slammed his fins into the air and beat them as hard as he could.

A hammer of air blew past him, slapping into the surface of the pool and sending spray everywhere, and the Remoraid found himself driven to the surface by the unexpected current.

Seeing the opportunity the moment it appeared, Delta opened fire. He shot down a spray of Bullet Seeds, hitting Remoraid three times, and then plunged into the water to press his advantage.


"I wonder how trainers who don't train their Pokémon to think for themselves handle underwater battles," Ash said out loud. "Especially with Water-types who can stay underwater for a long time."

"In my experience?" Misty replied. "Kind of poorly."

She shook her head. "There was one guy who wanted to start a new Ground-type gym, and he had huge trouble just because all my Pokémon stayed underwater. Whenever I showed off a new trick, he'd try to give orders and just… not be able to get his Pokémon to listen consistently."

"Speaking of him, he's scheduled for another test in a few months," Bruno told her. "Should be interesting to see if he's expanded his team a bit."

There was a sudden eruption of water, and both Remoraid and Delta burst out of the pool again. A Charge Beam flicked out at Delta, and hit him on the shoulder, but Delta powered through the shock and fired an Air Slash back at Remoraid.

The piscine Water-type landed with a wet splat on the outside edge of the arena, and began flopping to try and get back into the water as Delta rolled over and began to shoot Bullet Seeds down at him.

Remoraid was hit twice more, then a third time, but managed to get back into the water – dropping down for several seconds, during which time Delta established an Aqua Ring to heal himself and built up a new Tailwind.

Then Remoraid came up again and fired a Charge Beam – whereupon Delta spun his Aqua Ring expertly, turning it into a defence which caught the electric attack.

Delta flew out of the ring and hammered it back into the pool with his Tailwind, and the whole pool lit up yellow for a moment as the Charge Beam discharged back into Remoraid himself.

When the glow died down, Remoraid was clearly unable to battle further.


"How do you decide what kinds of arenas to use?" May asked, as her brother waved at Delta to stay out for now and his opponent recalled Remoraid. "I know that they're all pretty good for interesting battles, except for the Grass field, but why not a sand pit? Why not a lava field?"

"The idea's supposed to be that everyone qualifying has battled on all four arenas, so there's no bias," Bruno told her. "If one guy got knocked out on the lava field but someone else didn't have to battle there at all, that's unfair."

"Yeah, I guess that is a good point," May admitted. "Why those four, though? The ice and rock battlefields seem kind of similar."

"Usually, the ice battlefield tests how well a Pokémon can handle a slippery floor surface," Lance told them. "The rock battlefield doesn't have that, and between them they cover most of the normal battlefields Pokémon trainers will be on."

He shrugged. "There's forests and sand as well, those are quite common, but forests don't make for very impressive matches to watch…"

"...and sand only makes sense the years we don't use a flat, bare arena for the last few dozen matches," Bruno finished.

"There's a lot more to think about than I expected," Ash admitted. "I thought it was just because they were good for different Pokémon, like how a lot of water types have trouble on a dry field."

There was a flash as Max's foe sent out his next Pokémon, a Dodrio.

"Into the water!" Max called, and Delta promptly flipped over to plunge into the pool.

"Good move," Bruno noted. "That's going to give him time to think… unless the Dodrio just electrifies the whole pool, of course."


Dawn breathed a very quiet sigh of relief, feeling fairly confident she'd got through the latest conversation without any problems.

Being asked – politely – where her Togekiss was by someone genuinely curious about the answer had been unexpected, but at least she'd managed to deflect the question a little without seeming obvious.

If this was what Salvia did all the time, it was no wonder she wanted to spend time doing Contests sometimes.

Freesia cleared her throat slightly, to get Dawn's attention.

"Yes?" Dawn asked, reminding herself to be relaxed.

"A petitioner, your highness," Freesia informed her, indicating the main area of the room with a subtle nod.

Dawn looked up, seeing a woman approaching, and smiled invitingly.

"Your highness," the woman said, stopping a few respectful steps away. "My apologies for intruding."

"You're not intruding," Dawn told her. "This is the purpose of a levee. Might I ask your request?"

"Of course," the woman replied, seeming slightly flustered. "Well – right. My brother and I would like to set up a gym – it's something we've wanted to do for a long time, but we can't seem to make it work."

"I assume you already have a type picked out?" Dawn asked, and the woman nodded. "That's good, that's one of the first steps. It's also best to be confident in your abilities as a trainer of that type before you do the big challenge."

She frowned slightly. "I assume you ask because you want more than advice, though."

"Yes," the woman admitted. "We don't really have the funds to get a gym building, not and renovate it properly. We were hoping you would see your way to…?"

Dawn thought for a moment, then realized this was one of the cases she didn't have all the information. She was fairly sure Salvia would want this to happen, but she didn't even know if there was space for a suitable building...

"I will take it under due consideration," she told the woman. "If you could give my assistant Freesia the particulars, and you'll be contacted as soon as possible."

"Yes, your highness," the woman said, sagging slightly as she relaxed. "Thank you."

Dawn smiled, indicating Freesia with a sweep of her hand, then saw someone else approaching.

"Your highness," the man began. "May I say I'm most impressed with the grooming of the Furfrou there?"

"Fuur," Zorua said, tossing her head and making her ears swing prettily.

"I'm sure she's quite happy to hear it," Dawn replied. "So yes, you may."

That won her a smile from the man at the slight joke, and Dawn felt herself relax a little.

In a way, this was a bit like another kind of performance.


"Mmmm..." Pachirisu hummed to herself, nibbling her way through another nut.

She flicked her tail to the side so she could sit down better, and rummaged around in her bowl to find the crunchiest roasted nut of the lot.

"Isn't it a bit of a stereotype to eat nuts?" Buneary asked her.

Pachirisu looked up, and giggled.

"What?" Buneary said.

"You're eating a carrot right this minute!" Pachirisu replied.

"That's different," Buneary informed her loftily, finishing the carrot.

"Okay, sure, it's different," Pachirisu repeated. "How?"

"It just is," Buneary answered, and sat down. "So, what do you think of Salvia so far?"

"I did meet her before, we both did," Pachirisu pointed out. "You'd need to speak to Ambipom, or maybe Quilava, to get the perspective of someone totally new."

"Yeah, but this time we've seen her training two Pokémon we know," Buneary countered. "And I've already asked Piplup, who says she's – what were his words… 'surprisingly good', that's it."

Pachirisu snaffled another nut, then twitched her tail. "He's just happy he gets to be the one doing a really flashy move. Any idea if he's got a costume lined up yet?"

"I don't think so," Buneary mused.

Pachirisu went to get a nut, but her bowl had gone all of a sudden.

"Hey!" she yelped. "Ambipom!"

Ambipom tossed a nut into her mouth with one tailed hand, rolling her shoulders. "What?"

"You know very well what!" Pachirisu said, cheeks sparking.

"Excuse me?" Salvia called. "Pachirisu, Ambipom, Buneary? Can you come over here, I want to see if any of you think we're missing something!"

"How's she going to know if we do think that?" Pachirisu asked. Her cheeks fizzled out, and she clambered up to sit on Ambipom's shoulder. "She doesn't understand any of us."

"Brock does, though," Buneary pointed out.

Ambipom inspected the Electric-type on her shoulder. "Are you going to get off?"

"You take the nuts, you get the squirrel," Pachirisu shrugged.


"Mantine, stay down!" Max called.

His Pokémon dipped into the water, diving deep, then burst out a moment later in a shower of water and spray. He powered through the area he was vulnerable, evading a Tri Attack from Dodrio, then rolled quickly and pulled together all the water he'd brought with him into a single ball.

Firing it at Dodrio, he nearly managed to knock the groundbound Flying-type into the pool, but one of its three heads spotted him in time and the attack went wide.

Delta continued his roll, and a more potent energy began to build on the tips of his fins – a whirling vortex of shimmering light, which spread to cover the Water-type entirely and hide him from view.

"Twister," Max realized. "All right, Delta! Now, use it on Dodrio!"

"Dodrio, jump!" his opponent ordered, and Dodrio sprang into the air – high enough that the energy torrent of the Twister missed it entirely, and high enough for the Triple Bird Pokémon to get close to Delta at the peak of its arc.

The three heads conversed for a moment in a high-speed twittering, then appeared to come to an agreement and the body lashed out with a kick – a kick which happened to be fast enough, and accurate enough, to hit Delta despite the rotation of his attack.

The force of the blow also knocked Dodrio backwards, and the half-Normal Flying-type landed with bent knees on the side of the pool – as Delta went crashing into the pool itself, upside down and suffering backlash from losing control of his new attack.

After a few seconds, Delta bobbed to the surface – knocked out.


"That was… what, matching the frequency of the spin?" Ash asked. "I've seen Primeape do it with a Hitmontop, but I didn't know you could do it to moves like Twister."

"Yes, it's tricky," Lance agreed. "It doesn't really stop the Twister hurting you, but it means you don't face the full force of the attack – and if you disrupt the concentration of the Pokémon using it, that can be a problem. Max's Delta would have had a better chance of keeping control if he'd been used to the move."

"So it's one of the times using a new move you've just learned is a disadvantage," Lucario said, noting it down. "I'll do my best to remember that."

"I should really stop being surprised when you pull out a prop," Pikachu sighed.

"My trainer has a magic bag that holds more things than the average house," Lucario replied. "Well, not magic. An Aura bag."

"That doesn't actually explain why you have all those things, but whatever," Pikachu decided. "Looks like Max is sending out Kris now."

Kris drew herself in mid-air, taking on the basic Porygon form for a moment before reconfiguring it to suit the needs of the battle. She made herself more aerodynamic with Agility, jinking out of the way of a Tri Attack, then zoomed around and fired a Charge Beam at her opponent from an antenna that developed from her leading edge.

Dodrio dodged as well, displaying a startling agility, and countered with a high jump to get as high as Kris was. It didn't manage to land a blow with a kick this time, as Kris evaded the blow, and fell back to land on one of the otherwise-ignored floating platforms in the middle of the pool.

"Kris, Ice Beam!" Max called.

Kris reconfigured her attack antenna, and used Ice Beam. The attack missed Dodrio entirely, but it hit the platform – making Dodrio slip as it tried to jump clear, and sending the Flying-type splashing into the pool.

"Charge Beam!" Max went on. "Just keep that up!"

Dodrio's three heads came out of the pool, and it began swimming rapidly towards the side – but every time Kris went overhead she strafed the pool with Charge Beam attacks, and they got stronger with each run.

By the time Dodrio reached the poolside, it was almost entirely out of the battle, and Max's opponent recalled it.

He switched to a third Pokéball and sent the Pokémon inside out without losing a beat, and it plunged into the water so fast that Max didn't actually get a good look at it.

"Kris, what is it?" he called.

Unknown, Kris replied. Bubbles are being generated, impeding scan quality.

She used a speculative Charge Beam anyway, but then a glow lit up the water.

"Sea-air ballistic shark attack!" Max's opponent ordered with a flourish, showing off the glowing Mega Ring on his finger.

Max and Kris both had just enough time to be utterly baffled by that before a Mega Sharpedo came rocketing out of the water. It homed unerringly in on Kris, ate the shield she put up as a last-ditch defensive measure, and then Crunched her so hard her manifestation shattered.

"Time out!" the referee called, as Mega Sharpedo plunged back into the water. "Mr. Maple, is your Pokémon all right?"

"If her projector's okay, there's no harm," Max replied. "Porygon fight using a projection instead of a real body, because they sort of don't have one. If it's broken, though, I'll need to get a new one."

Mega Sharpedo's snout emerged from the water, and he spat Kris' projector at her trainer.

Catching it automatically, Max checked it over – finding no damage. "Looks like it's fine. Kris?"

I am mostly offended by how stupid that was, Kris stated.


Salvia nodded as Piplup and Togekiss pulled off the move flawlessly.

"Good work," she said, smiling. "I think that's really come together, that's five times in a row."

"Salvia, you sound like you're ready," Brock waved. "Is that right?"

"Yes, that's correct," Salvia confirmed. "I assume the Contest is soon?"

"Well, there's a bit of leeway, but we should set off fairly soon," Brock told her, checking his watch.

"I will make sure my outfit's ready, then," Salvia decided.

She went over to one of the two bags she'd brought, and unzipped it.

Taking out an orange dress, she inspected it to ensure it had handled the journey without any trouble – making sure there were no important creases, or similar.

"Wow..." Mawile said softly. "See? I knew princesses had great dresses! Look at that one!"

Tyrunt looked, not quite sure what he was supposed to be looking at, but not wanting to let his new friend down.

"It's… a dress?" he said, still a little unclear on that point.

"Yep," Mawile agreed. "The way it works is, she wears clothes to change how she looks – humans do it all the time, I don't think they like to see how other humans look without clothes. But some clothes are especially pretty, like those ones."

Pointing out details, she continued. "So that bit there with white, that looks sort of frothy? That's called lace..."

Tyrunt nodded along.

"Do Pokémon wear clothes?" he asked, after some careful thinking.

"Some do," Mawile told him. "We don't have to, but some Pokémon dress up and some humans dress up their Pokémon. Dawn does it a lot."

The Fossil took that in.

"And some Pokémon clothes – well, more like accessories – do extra things," Mawile added. "Ash has an Expert Belt and I sometimes wear it as a ribbon, it looks nice and it means if I have to fight I'm better at it. But even if it does that, you don't have to use it that way."


"Does your brother have any Pokémon we haven't seen yet?" Lance asked.

May went through the list in her head.

"We've had… Ferris, Arc, Cinder, Corona, Casper," she listed off. "Guy, Roland, Jirachi… and today Delta and Kris. So unless he caught one in Sinnoh and didn't tell me, that's all of them."

Not quite all of them, Ethan reminded her.

"Yeah, but-" May began.


Max reached for a Pokéball, thinking about how best to defeat the Mega Sharpedo, when there was a sudden flash of orange light in front of him.

Recognition, Deoxys stated. Competition. Battle. Interest.

"...sorry?" Max said. "I don't quite get what you mean… can you imagine trying to explain it to Ferris?"

Deoxys tilted its head.

I am interested in taking part in this battle.

"What's going on?" the referee asked, bemused. "I don't think I recognize that Pokémon."

"This is Deoxys," Max explained. "I met him a little while ago… he says he wants to battle."

"Is he one of your Pokémon?" the referee said.

I am one of Max Maple's Pokémon, Deoxys stated, clearing that one up, and floated over to the middle of the arena.

Then stopped.

Uncertainty. How does this work?

"So… once both sides are ready to restart the battle, then both Pokémon try to beat the other one," Max supplied. "You have to be careful not to hurt the audience, do too much damage to the arena, or actually hurt the other Pokémon beyond knocking them out."

Simplicity, Deoxys stated, forming a shield around itself. I will battle.

Then Mega Sharpedo came erupting out of the water and ate the shield.


"I assume this is the one your Pokédex was reminding you about?" Lance asked, as the referee asked what Pokémon had just appeared.

"Yes," May admitted. "Deoxys is a kind of special case – Max has its Pokéball, but it's not really one of his Pokémon in the normal way."

"It's actually quite interesting that Max is using a Legendary for the second time to face a Mega," Will contributed. "I've noticed that some of Max's Pokémon have Mega Stones, but it's been psychic Legendaries instead."

Lance nodded.

"Ash, it just occurred to me – what you said before?" he asked. "About how this doesn't seem like the kind of league you normally have? I think that's because Max is the person who would normally stop you."

Ash thought about that, then nodded. "Yeah, maybe you're right."

The water exploded, and they saw a glimpse of Mega Sharpedo inside a huge plume of water. A flash of orange light followed, then both Pokémon plunged into the pool and vanished.

Flashes of light and pressure waves bounced and rolled inside the pool for maybe three seconds, then there was an explosion bright enough to make the watchers shield their eyes.

The entire contents of the pool came raining down all across the arena, running down the inside of the shield protecting the crowd, and Mega Sharpedo bounced twice off the powerful Reflect screen before landing and reverting.

Inside the dry pit that had been the pool a moment before, Deoxys – now in Attack Form – turned to face Max.

Performance? It asked.

"Can we look at the replay?" Karen requested. "I lost track."

"We all did," Lucario supplied.


As the pool was checked for cracks and refilled, Dexter used his projector to create an image showing a slowed-down version of the battle.

First the water exploded upwards as Mega Sharpedo performed his sea-air ballistic shark attack again, mouth opening wide in slow-motion to slam a Psychic Fangs attack into the shield Deoxys had erected.

As the fangs arrived, shattering through the shield in dozens of places before causing a more generalized collapse, Deoxys reformed – switching from Normal form to Defence form, so by the time the attack arrived it was ready for it.

The plumes of water that followed Mega Sharpedo out of the water made it hard to tell exactly what was going on, but Dexter's projection added extra detail – showing the wireframe images of Deoxys and Mega Sharpedo inside the wall of spray. Deoxys took the attack, resisting it relatively easily due to its strong defence and lack of vulnerable areas, but Mega Sharpedo got a good grip and pulled the Psychic-type back down into the water with it.

The next three seconds took at least thirty to play out slow enough to recognize what was going on. The shock of landing in the water shook Deoxys free of Mega Sharpedo's jaws, and it shifted to Speed Form to get away before changing to Attack Form and firing a blast of psionic energy.

Since this didn't affect Mega Sharpedo in any way whatsoever, Deoxys flitted away again to evade the Dark-type and tried something else – an Extremespeed attack, which knocked Mega Sharpedo sideways with great force.

This didn't seem to be sufficient to either stop Mega Sharpedo or satisfy Deoxys, and the two Pokémon dodged and weaved underwater – Deoxys shifting almost randomly between forms, managing to be in Defence Form whenever it got close enough to be attacked – before Mega Sharpedo hit the wall of the pool.

Deoxys' core flared up as it shifted from Speed to Attack Form, and then the entire pool glowed as well.

At this point, Deoxys simply throws all the water out of the pool, Dexter clarified, shutting the projection down. That's why it went everywhere.

"Thank you," Lance nodded to Dexter, then looked back at Ash. "Has Max used Deoxys in battle before?"

"Not that I know of," Ash replied. "So… no."

"I see," Lance replied. "Well, that seems pretty clear-cut to me – Max had not yet used either a Legendary Pokémon or a Mega Stone in this match, so we don't need to intervene."

He turned to address May. "But can you tell him not to overdo it?"

"I guess," May agreed.


"How does the ball work?" Dawn asked. "I'm okay at dancing, but not great."

"That's one reason why your partner for the first dance has already been arranged," Freesia told her. "He's experienced with handling little problems, and he's one of Salvia's close confidants so you need not fear. Apart from that… it's quite common for people to sit out most of the night's dancing, so you don't need to take part if you don't want to."

"I could help," Zorua volunteered, sounding out her words carefully. "If Dawn does not want to dance, I could be Dawn?"

"You'd actually be being Salvia, not me," Dawn noted. "But I'll be fine if it's just one or two dances."

"What about if I was a partner for you?" the Dark-type suggested.

"Probably best not," Dawn replied. "Thanks for the offer, though."

She winced. "I'm partly afraid that if I step on your foot then your illusion collapses..."

"Zorrr..." Zorua agreed, lapsing back into her native dialect.

"I'm not sure which is stranger to hear from a Furfrou," Freesia said with amusement.


"All right, everyone!" the announcer said, with a smile in her voice. "It's time for today's Contest, here in lovely Floaroma town!"

She nodded towards the entrance. "First up, from Twinleaf, is Dawn Berlitz!"

Salvia, disguised as Dawn – which largely meant 'having Dawn's Pokémon' – stepped out onto the floor of the Contest hall, and curtseyed.

Her dress was mostly orange, but not a simple flat colour on the orange parts – instead the hue of the orange waxed and waned, producing an eye-catching effect, and one which was highlighted by the white lace and accents to produce a nice effect.

Her hair might have clashed with it, but instead it just provided a contrast to accentuate the difference.

She sent out Piplup first, and the Water-type did a little bow before spinning up a Whirlpool just in front of him. He jumped into it, letting it launch him into the air, and then Salvia added Togekiss to the Appeal.

Togekiss caught her teammate at the apex of his boosted jump, letting the Water-type land neatly on her back, then shifted her balance a little so Piplup could run forwards and get close to her head.

He inhaled, then produced another whirlpool as the first one fell apart without him. This second one was more intense, stronger – more powerful – and began by taking on a deep greenish-blue colour striated with white, before pink and blue glitter infused itself into the whirlpool as Togekiss added her Fairy Wind to it.

The Fairy energy grew brighter, the glittering light stronger, and the swirl became more and more pronounced until the colours blended together into an opalescent light. Piplup kept working it and growing it, slowly and steadily making it larger, until it was easily bigger than the Flying-type he was riding around on.

"Now!" Salvia called suddenly. "And use Agility!"

Piplup threw up a second whirlpool, going the other direction, and pushed it up into the first one. They ground against one another, shedding a rain of shimmering droplets that sparked and flashed as they hit the ground, and then the whole thing lost the rest of its angular momentum and poured out onto the ground in a great glowing waterfall.

Both Piplup and Togekiss had vanished almost as soon as Piplup produced his second whirlpool, and they stayed invisible for the three or four seconds it took the torrent of shimmering water to rain down onto the floor – then they emerged from the base of the fall, covered in stardust light from the last few drops of Fairy-infused water, and Togekiss landed in front of her Original Trainer.

Piplup did a forward flip off her back, landing in front of her in turn, and both struck a pose.

"A very impressive combination performance!" the announcer said, over the sound of the applause.

Salvia sighed with relief, trying not to let it show on her face.

"Thank you," she said to both Pokémon, giving Togekiss a hug, then offering one to Piplup as well which he accepted.


"How did they do that?" Tyrunt asked, fidgeting a little as he tried to get his tail arranged properly with the seat. "They were underneath the whirlpool thing, and then they vanished… and then they appeared inside it!"

"I think I know," Mawile said, frowning as she thought about it. "When she said Agility, she meant they should move really fast while everyone was watching the other thing happening. Then they went above it, and Piplup made it so the water fell in a kind of tube shape – so Togekiss could fly down the middle."

She nodded. "That's how I'd do it!"

"You're really smart to know that," Tyrunt said in awe.

"Not really," Mawile replied, shaking her head. "It's not smart, it's experience. You could learn it too!"

"Mawile's mostly right," Brock contributed. "A lot of being good at something is just getting used to how it works. You don't have to work it all out from the start, that would take ages – and you'd probably make mistakes anyway. But if you start with what other people know and do, you don't need to work their things out and you can come up with new things."

He smiled. "It's sometimes called standing on the shoulders of giants."

"But if you do that and they move, you might fall off," Tyrunt protested. "That sounds like a silly idea."

"Not if you trust them," Mawile replied. "Then it's safe, and even fun!"


"Charmeleon, Grovyle!" called the other Coordinator, a Johtonian called Tomy. "Rising Firedance!"

Tomy's Grovyle nodded briefly, and crouched down. His Charmeleon teammate used Ember just as Grovyle began to use Magical Leaf, and each of the leaves that came out was set on fire by the one just before it – producing a flickering stream of flames in odd colours which seemed as if they gave the Grass-type wings.

Springing into the air, the Grovyle went higher than he might have done otherwise – using the bursts of pressure and coloured flame from the burning Magical Leaves to gain extra height, before dismissing them and firing a prepared Solarbeam at Piplup.

The Water-type conjured one of his Whirlpools as quick as a flash, using it to launch him off Togekiss' back and out of the way of the beam, and Togekiss entered into a dive to make sure Grovyle couldn't target her instead – leaving the whirlpool behind, which sent rainbow beams of light all over the arena for a moment as it refracted the Solarbeam.

Cancelling his attack, Grovyle looked up to see where Piplup had gone. He spotted the avian Water-type creating another whirlpool, doing a half-spin around this one before flying back down towards Togekiss, and the two teammates reunited behind him – dodging away from a speculative spiral-shaped Flamethrower as they did so.

The points bar for Salvia (as Dawn) stopped dropping, though thanks to a mistake earlier in the battle it was still below Tomy's score.

"Togekiss, fuse an Air Slash!" Salvia called out, trusting them both to know what she meant, and Togekiss immediately pulled up. The Fairy-type used Air Slash, directing them towards Grovyle, and the Grass-type twisted in mid-air to avoid being caught by the attacks.

Togekiss kept going, passing close to Grovyle as she ascended, and nearly caught up with her own Air Slash attacks – reaching the still-disintegrating Whirlpool Piplup had made to dodge the Solarbeam only a moment after they did.

Piplup snagged the Water attack and reinvigorated it, keeping it stable as Togekiss fused her Air Slash with it, and the two of them spun it around and launched it at Grovyle.

This time, it was much wider than the Air Slash – and a combination of Water and Flying moves meant that it was still a significant danger to the Grass-type. He was hurled back into his teammate, and the impact destabilized the waterspout Salvia's orders had created – sending a plume of water in all directions.


"It's a lot of variations on the same trick," Brock said, mostly for the benefit of Tyrunt. "But it's a very versatile trick – and that's what you need to be clever about doing!"

Tyrunt nodded, his huge jaw agape.


Salvia looked at her ribbon, tilting it a little so it caught the light, then held it to her chest and smiled.

"All right?" Brock asked her, looking up from giving Rockruff a comb. "How was the day?"

"It was great," Salvia answered, smiling broadly. "It was full of action, but it was so different to what I normally do that it was… exhausting and invigorating at the same time."

Brock nodded, understanding just what she meant.

"And all of Dawn's Pokémon have been lovely as well," Salvia went on. "They've really done their best to make me feel welcome, which has been a great help."

She checked the time, using Dawn's Pokétch. "They should be back fairly soon, correct?"

"I think so," Brock agreed. "We'll just have to keep an eye out for them."


"I hope you didn't have any problems," Freesia said, as the car drove along towards Floaroma. "I didn't see anything, but is there something you want to bring up now – afterwards?"

Dawn thought about it.

"I… think it's probably a good thing it wasn't a very busy day," she said. "That wasn't a problem, but it could be one in future if we do this again – especially if something important comes up."

"Yes, we'll take that into account," Freesia agreed. "I wonder if we should see about getting a teleporting Pokémon on retainer to sort the situation out if need be."

"That would help," Dawn admitted. "But… I wouldn't mind doing it again, if it didn't happen too often. You made it easier than last time, actually."

"I'm glad to help you both," Freesia smiled.

The car slowed to a halt, and Dawn opened the door – seeing the collection of Pokémon, and Salvia and Brock, right where they'd planned.

Zorua hopped out with her, and Brock's gaze went down to the Dark-type in surprise.

"Zorua?" he asked.

The Dark-type nodded, tilting her head. "oooru?"

"...no, actually, I didn't think you were gone," Brock replied.

"Zor!" Zorua protested indignantly.

"Last week you spent two hours pretending to be my sombrero as part of an elaborate prank you'd worked with Casper on," Brock pointed out. "I did notice you weren't around, I just thought the reason was entirely different."

Zorua considered that, then sighed. "Or."

Dawn smiled, then looked up as her Pokémon came over. "Was your day all right?"

"It was interesting," Ambipom told her. "Some of what she said was good just because it gave us all new perspectives on things."

"That's good, then," Dawn chuckled.

Salvia walked up, and shook her hand. "Thank you so much, Dawn. This has been a real release for me – something I never really thought I'd get to do."

"I'm so glad my trainers respect one another," Togekiss said. "It really makes me smile."


"Tyrunt?" Mawile asked.

She turned her head from where she was lying on the grass, looking over at Tyrunt copying her and resting in the cool of the evening.

"Mm-hmm?" Tyrunt replied. "Is something wrong?"

"No, not really," Mawile assured him. "I wanted to ask, now you've had time to think… what do you think of Contests?"

Tyrunt closed his eyes.

"I think… the Appeal bit looks really good," he said. "Like a lot of fun. But the battle bits… I like them better than most battles, because the Pokémon are really trying hard to show off rather than trying hard to make the other Pokémon hurt."

He shook his head a little. "But they still make me really uncomfortable."

"That's okay," Mawile assured him. "If you want, next time we can leave after the Appeal bit."

"You don't mind?" Tyrunt asked. "But… I know you like those bits too."

"I do!" Mawile agreed. "But you don't."

Tyrunt lay back, a smile on his jaw. "Thank you."


AN:


One more game for Max, and the swap between the identical non-twins.

I think I've been spoiled by being able to write Pokémon dialogue so often...

Sea-Air Ballistic Shark Attack inspired by the third Science of Discworld book, mostly.